10 ms·

There are clearly no longer any humans working at google, just one giant heartless inhuman machine calling the shots... Or at least thats how Google looks to t

There are clearly no longer any humans working at google, just one giant heartless inhuman machine calling the shots... Or at least thats how Google looks to the public these days. If thats the perception they want, they got it. I think this Buzz privacy fiasco is an historic lesson in the convergence of humanity and software and the lesson learned is that privacy of personal relationships should be a fundamental right

jasonlotito 17y ago
Not sure what the problem is. I have complete control over the privacy settings of all my accounts. After reading the post, I think the problem is the poster made a choice before this not to use the privacy features.
- dkersten 17y ago
  Google added Buzz to my account automatically and automatically added people form my contact list - some of whom I don't think should have been added - and I had to actively go and search for the privacy/remove/turn off features. If, on the other hand, Google had said "heres our new Google Buzz feature, heres how to turn it on, heres the privacy settings and heres how you can add everyone|people you talk to regularly|manually add" then I'd be perfectly happy. Opt in is better than opt out, as far as privacy is concerned.
  - pavs 17y ago
    >Google added Buzz to my account automatically and automatically added people form my contact list. To the best of my knowledge they prompt you and ask you who you want to follow. This was the case for me. They don't automatically follow - unless you click the OK button. Turning off buzz is literally one click away at the bottom of the screen. I know because I used it.
    - jeffmould 17y ago
      When I set my one gmail account up it did not prompt me, all my contacts were added. However, I went to look at another account I have and it did not add the contacts from that. Not sure if it is a timing issue, as I set my first account up within 12 hours of them releasing Buzz and waited till yesterday after hearing all the complaints to see what it looked like in my other account and if I maybe missed something the first time. I think they may have either fixed the issue or are working on fixing it.
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
    - dkersten 17y ago
      Not for me. They just said "The following people have been added automatically..." At least, I did not manually add anyone and I had a bunch of people added.
      - pavs 17y ago
        I am pretty sure you are mistaken. This is the prompt everyone got when they went to buzz for the first time: http://www.digitaltrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/google-buzz-gmail.jpg http://www.digitaltrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/goog... This is also shown in the Google buzz demo video. Responsibility lies on you when you decide not to edit the follow users and check privacy setting when its right in front of you the first time. The only way forward is to click OK, thats what you did like everyone else who is complaining and going ra ra about privacy.
        sp332 17y ago
        Look, people aren't making this stuff up. I'm not sure of the circumstances yet (maybe just the first batch?), but there are a lot of people who were automatically added to Buzz without a prompt.
        pasbesoin 17y ago
        Upon signing in to Gmail, I was directed to some sort of Buzz landing page / prompt. I deliberately chose 'no / continue what I was doing'. (I wasn't aware of any problem, so I didn't make a point of memorizing the presentation.) Upon proceeding in to Gmail, I found that I was participating in Buzz, with IIRC 14 follows. My more general reaction to this situation, including a similar, serious security implication for a close family member, I'll comment on elsewhere in this thread. Briefly: You fucked up bigtime, Google. The people truly responsible for this need to be terminated.
        lutorm 17y ago
        Me too. I just logged into my gmail account (which I don't use) and got a buzz page. I deliberately did not click the huge "Okay" button but instead the tiny "Nah", but then there was still a buzz tab and I had to click the very not obvious link at the bottom to turn it off.
    - moss 17y ago
      If you clicked that link, you have not actually disabled your public profile.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- lucifer 17y ago
  When you have HN readers complaining about this issue, then we can be fairly certain that the average user of Google's products will have a very difficult time finding their way to the "privacy features" controls, and in effect Google has already made these privacy decisions for them.
  - jasonlotito 17y ago
    Being an HN reader doesn't make someone immune to being wrong. At some point, the user has to take responsibility. Every complaint I've read that discusses this has mentioned not using Google Profiles to modify privacy settings previously. Either that, or it wasn't mentioned at all. So, I go back to what I was saying: did anyone using the privacy settings available have their privacy setting explicitly overridden, or was is just people not using the privacy settings available, and then getting run over when they realized what they had allowed opened? Edit: I get downvoted for asking questions. Apparently, not following the torch-bearers blindly is frowned on.
    - jfager 17y ago
      This morning, I've watched two coworkers open their gmail accounts for the first time since Buzz went live. In both cases, they clicked "No thanks, take me to my inbox" instead of the button to "Check out Buzz", and in both cases, Buzz was enabled anyways, and a bunch of people were listed as following/followers. We looked at their profiles, and all the followers/ees were publicly listed. What, exactly, should they have done to keep this from happening?
      - jasonlotito 17y ago
        They were using their profile privacy settings, and it violated it, or was it more a case of the feature enabling itself in Gmail and using existing privacy settings? Edit: And because it needs to be said here: I'm not suggesting enabling Buzz and then using existing privacy settings as a bases for how Buzz works is right. I'm just asking a question.
- sker 17y ago
  I'm not sure what the problem is either. I also have complete control over my privacy settings, but it seems you can't say that in this particular topic because the army of group-thinkers will down-vote you (read: censor your comment) to oblivion. We can't have two-sided conversations in HN anymore. Either you bash Buzz/Google or get the hell out of this thread.
  - jasonlotito 17y ago
    Here is where I think the problem lies. First, Google doesn't show your contact list. It doesn't. This was what people were suggesting, and it's not true. Basically, what is happening is the same thing that happens at twitter by default. People follow other people, and followers, NOT contacts, are shared. People can see who is following you, but they can't see your contacts. So, when someone joins Buzz, Google suggests they follow certain people, and sets them up. These are people they have in their contacts list. These people in turn have also done the same thing, most likely. Followers, like on Twitter, are shared publicly. Basically, a lot of people were following people when they really didn't want to be, and despite the ability to prevent it, they accepted the defaults. Google has made changes to make it more obvious, but from my own experience, and from everything I've read, seen, or done, is that this was all preventable. The problem was, people didn't take the time to read, or understand, what was happening, just happily clicking along. Of course, that's probably just as dangerous. Should Google have handled it differently? Yes. Did they betray users privacy? Possibly, depending on if you accept that users using software have a certain level of responsibility, or that the software is supposed to assume you don't know what you are doing. Edit: More information this morning, and I feel vindicated. =)
    - mbrubeck 17y ago
      I did some of my own experiments with a couple of throwaway accounts, before the privacy improvements on Thursday. I set up a profile on one account ahead of time. This was very easy to do; Google Reader encourages it at various places. When I logged into GMail and got the "Buzz" welcome screen, it offered "Try Buzz" and "No thanks." I clicked "No thanks" and it took me to GMail, but the Buzz UI was enabled anyways. When I logged into second account that was a contact of the first, it received a notification that the first account was following the second, with a link to the first account's profile and list of followees/followers. Now, this part is a bit foreign to many people, but imagine that the fact you email someone is a secret and potentially damaging to you. Maybe you are a whistleblower talking to a government regulator. Someone I know had a stalker added to their Buzz followers along with people she didn't want the stalker to learn about (because stalkers will try to get at their victims through their friends and family). Maybe you don't want certain people aware of your sexual orientation, or your religious or political activities. At this point, the damage is already done. Before Thursday night, there was no clear notification or way to opt-out of the public followers list until after it had been created and then broadcast to a list of people. By the time you got around to checking out Buzz, realizing that your information had been disclosed, and figuring out how to remove it, it could easily be too late. Note that Google did not "suggest" people to follow and then let users "accept" these defaults. They were added without the user's knowledge or consent. Worse, if you found the "Turn off Buzz" link in the GMail footer and clicked it before blocking your followers, changing your profile settings, etc., then all your information is still public but hidden from your GMail pages! It's then much harder either to discover the problem or to fix it. And Google has admitted to some outright bugs that made the situation worse for the "Fuck you Google" blogger. For example, people still appeared in the "Following you" list on Google Reader even after they were blocked and you set your Reader shared items to private; they couldn't actually see your shared items then but it appeared to the user that they could. Also, before Thursday there was no way to block a user who did not have a public profile. My friends who work at Google are convinced these are real problems[1]. I think you are dismissing them way too quickly. [1]: http://www.google.com/buzz/mbrubeck/HEN2DyJooNZ/This-looks-like-a-pretty-good-response-to-all-the http://www.google.com/buzz/mbrubeck/HEN2DyJooNZ/This-looks-l...
goodside 17y ago
Recklessness and lack of foresight doesn't make you inhuman. If you forwarded this post back in time to the Buzz engineers, they would try to fix it before launch -- not laugh maniacally at the thought of an innocent woman fearing for her safety.
- mechanical_fish 17y ago
  The engineers are human. I'm sure they're as horrified as you suggest. Companies are not human, certainly not by default. The vector sum of the effort of many humans is inhuman by default. [1] (Phrases like "mob mentality", "team spirit", and "groupthink" didn't get invented for nothing.) It takes hard work to give a company a human face -- hard work by management, by PR, by customer support, by HR. Some companies are much better at such work than others. --- [1] This is, of course, a perennial topic here on HN: It's easier to run a human company when the company has fewer people. That's one of a startup's advantages. Of course, a company that is too small runs the risk of being too human: Humans, for example, are prone to emotional roller-coastering, can become fixated on the trees instead of seeing the forest, and need at least some sleep every day. A team's inherent "inhumanity" can help smooth out misfeatures like this.
  - qjz 17y ago
    It appears they may have foreseen the outcome and acted deliberately, if this thread at http://www.google.com/buzz/tmgrone/brHidEYC3jh/I-wish-Google-cared-more-about-design-then-I-might http://www.google.com/buzz/tmgrone/brHidEYC3jh/I-wish-Google... is any indication. In particular, see Brett Lider's response that includes this excerpt: 'Similar to Facebook being willing to "piss its users off" when it feels the need to make a big change in its service for the long-term good, I see Buzz in Gmail as a relative big change that requires more than one day to adjust to. We've all been on the side of changes in services that we didn't like and either got used to or actually loved in the long run. We think Buzz is one of them. A lot of us here have also been designers on a service that we knew needed to change but was afraid to because of internal momentum or fear of short-term user reactions.' edit: I think the quote stands on its own. They may be horrified, but the action was rooted in a kind of arrogance we often ascribe to inhuman activity, where the impact on other humans wasn't considered thoughtfully or was deliberately ignored.

jasonlotito 17y ago

Not sure what the problem is. I have complete control over the privacy settings of all my accounts. After reading the post, I think the problem is the poster made a choice before this not to use the privacy features.

dkersten 17y ago
Google added Buzz to my account automatically and automatically added people form my contact list - some of whom I don't think should have been added - and I had to actively go and search for the privacy/remove/turn off features. If, on the other hand, Google had said "heres our new Google Buzz feature, heres how to turn it on, heres the privacy settings and heres how you can add everyone|people you talk to regularly|manually add" then I'd be perfectly happy. Opt in is better than opt out, as far as privacy is concerned.
- pavs 17y ago
  >Google added Buzz to my account automatically and automatically added people form my contact list. To the best of my knowledge they prompt you and ask you who you want to follow. This was the case for me. They don't automatically follow - unless you click the OK button. Turning off buzz is literally one click away at the bottom of the screen. I know because I used it.
  - jeffmould 17y ago
    When I set my one gmail account up it did not prompt me, all my contacts were added. However, I went to look at another account I have and it did not add the contacts from that. Not sure if it is a timing issue, as I set my first account up within 12 hours of them releasing Buzz and waited till yesterday after hearing all the complaints to see what it looked like in my other account and if I maybe missed something the first time. I think they may have either fixed the issue or are working on fixing it.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - dkersten 17y ago
    Not for me. They just said "The following people have been added automatically..." At least, I did not manually add anyone and I had a bunch of people added.
    - pavs 17y ago
      I am pretty sure you are mistaken. This is the prompt everyone got when they went to buzz for the first time: http://www.digitaltrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/google-buzz-gmail.jpg http://www.digitaltrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/goog... This is also shown in the Google buzz demo video. Responsibility lies on you when you decide not to edit the follow users and check privacy setting when its right in front of you the first time. The only way forward is to click OK, thats what you did like everyone else who is complaining and going ra ra about privacy.
      - sp332 17y ago
        Look, people aren't making this stuff up. I'm not sure of the circumstances yet (maybe just the first batch?), but there are a lot of people who were automatically added to Buzz without a prompt.
        pasbesoin 17y ago
        Upon signing in to Gmail, I was directed to some sort of Buzz landing page / prompt. I deliberately chose 'no / continue what I was doing'. (I wasn't aware of any problem, so I didn't make a point of memorizing the presentation.) Upon proceeding in to Gmail, I found that I was participating in Buzz, with IIRC 14 follows. My more general reaction to this situation, including a similar, serious security implication for a close family member, I'll comment on elsewhere in this thread. Briefly: You fucked up bigtime, Google. The people truly responsible for this need to be terminated.
        lutorm 17y ago
        Me too. I just logged into my gmail account (which I don't use) and got a buzz page. I deliberately did not click the huge "Okay" button but instead the tiny "Nah", but then there was still a buzz tab and I had to click the very not obvious link at the bottom to turn it off.
  - moss 17y ago
    If you clicked that link, you have not actually disabled your public profile.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
lucifer 17y ago
When you have HN readers complaining about this issue, then we can be fairly certain that the average user of Google's products will have a very difficult time finding their way to the "privacy features" controls, and in effect Google has already made these privacy decisions for them.
- jasonlotito 17y ago
  Being an HN reader doesn't make someone immune to being wrong. At some point, the user has to take responsibility. Every complaint I've read that discusses this has mentioned not using Google Profiles to modify privacy settings previously. Either that, or it wasn't mentioned at all. So, I go back to what I was saying: did anyone using the privacy settings available have their privacy setting explicitly overridden, or was is just people not using the privacy settings available, and then getting run over when they realized what they had allowed opened? Edit: I get downvoted for asking questions. Apparently, not following the torch-bearers blindly is frowned on.
  - jfager 17y ago
    This morning, I've watched two coworkers open their gmail accounts for the first time since Buzz went live. In both cases, they clicked "No thanks, take me to my inbox" instead of the button to "Check out Buzz", and in both cases, Buzz was enabled anyways, and a bunch of people were listed as following/followers. We looked at their profiles, and all the followers/ees were publicly listed. What, exactly, should they have done to keep this from happening?
    - jasonlotito 17y ago
      They were using their profile privacy settings, and it violated it, or was it more a case of the feature enabling itself in Gmail and using existing privacy settings? Edit: And because it needs to be said here: I'm not suggesting enabling Buzz and then using existing privacy settings as a bases for how Buzz works is right. I'm just asking a question.
sker 17y ago
I'm not sure what the problem is either. I also have complete control over my privacy settings, but it seems you can't say that in this particular topic because the army of group-thinkers will down-vote you (read: censor your comment) to oblivion. We can't have two-sided conversations in HN anymore. Either you bash Buzz/Google or get the hell out of this thread.
- jasonlotito 17y ago
  Here is where I think the problem lies. First, Google doesn't show your contact list. It doesn't. This was what people were suggesting, and it's not true. Basically, what is happening is the same thing that happens at twitter by default. People follow other people, and followers, NOT contacts, are shared. People can see who is following you, but they can't see your contacts. So, when someone joins Buzz, Google suggests they follow certain people, and sets them up. These are people they have in their contacts list. These people in turn have also done the same thing, most likely. Followers, like on Twitter, are shared publicly. Basically, a lot of people were following people when they really didn't want to be, and despite the ability to prevent it, they accepted the defaults. Google has made changes to make it more obvious, but from my own experience, and from everything I've read, seen, or done, is that this was all preventable. The problem was, people didn't take the time to read, or understand, what was happening, just happily clicking along. Of course, that's probably just as dangerous. Should Google have handled it differently? Yes. Did they betray users privacy? Possibly, depending on if you accept that users using software have a certain level of responsibility, or that the software is supposed to assume you don't know what you are doing. Edit: More information this morning, and I feel vindicated. =)
  - mbrubeck 17y ago
    I did some of my own experiments with a couple of throwaway accounts, before the privacy improvements on Thursday. I set up a profile on one account ahead of time. This was very easy to do; Google Reader encourages it at various places. When I logged into GMail and got the "Buzz" welcome screen, it offered "Try Buzz" and "No thanks." I clicked "No thanks" and it took me to GMail, but the Buzz UI was enabled anyways. When I logged into second account that was a contact of the first, it received a notification that the first account was following the second, with a link to the first account's profile and list of followees/followers. Now, this part is a bit foreign to many people, but imagine that the fact you email someone is a secret and potentially damaging to you. Maybe you are a whistleblower talking to a government regulator. Someone I know had a stalker added to their Buzz followers along with people she didn't want the stalker to learn about (because stalkers will try to get at their victims through their friends and family). Maybe you don't want certain people aware of your sexual orientation, or your religious or political activities. At this point, the damage is already done. Before Thursday night, there was no clear notification or way to opt-out of the public followers list until after it had been created and then broadcast to a list of people. By the time you got around to checking out Buzz, realizing that your information had been disclosed, and figuring out how to remove it, it could easily be too late. Note that Google did not "suggest" people to follow and then let users "accept" these defaults. They were added without the user's knowledge or consent. Worse, if you found the "Turn off Buzz" link in the GMail footer and clicked it before blocking your followers, changing your profile settings, etc., then all your information is still public but hidden from your GMail pages! It's then much harder either to discover the problem or to fix it. And Google has admitted to some outright bugs that made the situation worse for the "Fuck you Google" blogger. For example, people still appeared in the "Following you" list on Google Reader even after they were blocked and you set your Reader shared items to private; they couldn't actually see your shared items then but it appeared to the user that they could. Also, before Thursday there was no way to block a user who did not have a public profile. My friends who work at Google are convinced these are real problems[1]. I think you are dismissing them way too quickly. [1]: http://www.google.com/buzz/mbrubeck/HEN2DyJooNZ/This-looks-like-a-pretty-good-response-to-all-the http://www.google.com/buzz/mbrubeck/HEN2DyJooNZ/This-looks-l...

goodside 17y ago

Recklessness and lack of foresight doesn't make you inhuman. If you forwarded this post back in time to the Buzz engineers, they would try to fix it before launch -- not laugh maniacally at the thought of an innocent woman fearing for her safety.

mechanical_fish 17y ago
The engineers are human. I'm sure they're as horrified as you suggest. Companies are not human, certainly not by default. The vector sum of the effort of many humans is inhuman by default. [1] (Phrases like "mob mentality", "team spirit", and "groupthink" didn't get invented for nothing.) It takes hard work to give a company a human face -- hard work by management, by PR, by customer support, by HR. Some companies are much better at such work than others. --- [1] This is, of course, a perennial topic here on HN: It's easier to run a human company when the company has fewer people. That's one of a startup's advantages. Of course, a company that is too small runs the risk of being too human: Humans, for example, are prone to emotional roller-coastering, can become fixated on the trees instead of seeing the forest, and need at least some sleep every day. A team's inherent "inhumanity" can help smooth out misfeatures like this.
- qjz 17y ago
  It appears they may have foreseen the outcome and acted deliberately, if this thread at http://www.google.com/buzz/tmgrone/brHidEYC3jh/I-wish-Google-cared-more-about-design-then-I-might http://www.google.com/buzz/tmgrone/brHidEYC3jh/I-wish-Google... is any indication. In particular, see Brett Lider's response that includes this excerpt: 'Similar to Facebook being willing to "piss its users off" when it feels the need to make a big change in its service for the long-term good, I see Buzz in Gmail as a relative big change that requires more than one day to adjust to. We've all been on the side of changes in services that we didn't like and either got used to or actually loved in the long run. We think Buzz is one of them. A lot of us here have also been designers on a service that we knew needed to change but was afraid to because of internal momentum or fear of short-term user reactions.' edit: I think the quote stands on its own. They may be horrified, but the action was rooted in a kind of arrogance we often ascribe to inhuman activity, where the impact on other humans wasn't considered thoughtfully or was deliberately ignored.